350

Polar Kinship, by Derek Weidman

Currency:USD Category:Art Start Price:150.00 USD
Polar Kinship, by Derek Weidman
All items in this auction were created, at least in part, on the wood lathe, with wood as the primary material. All are one-of-a-kind signed originals, individually created by the artist listed.
Lot #350
Polar Kinship
Wood, found materials
9" x 9" x 9"

Derek Weidman
Pennsylvania, United States

"As the footprint and mark of man find the most remote corners of this earth, we must find a way not to trample and crush but to meet our needs while treading lightly, respectfully, intelligently, seamlessly building the world of humanity to fit with the rest of life that we share this planet with. A polar bear living perilously at odds with the machinations of human progress, pipelines for our oil consumption want to be built, but can we not just meet our goals for our society but built in a way that our goals as an earth are met as well? Instead of driving a pipe through nature, aggressively, callously, short shortsightedly, can we come up with creative solutions and make a new nature, organic, progressive, brilliant. Let's erase the line of man and the wild and start returning to the fold, and then bloom a technological rose that is not just effective, but beautiful. I choose to include ugly trash like materials, broken window panes, epoxy, metal pipes, in this sculpture and tried to integrate these materials into the polar bear, while even if somewhat compromised, still whole and alive."

Derek Weidman was born in 1982, and has dedicated the last seven years to exploring lathe-based sculpture. He has exhibited work in galleries across the United States and in England. Weidman's work has been featured in numerous publications. His approach involves multi-axis turning as the foundation of his work. By using the unique shaping processes of turning, Derek has created a descriptive visual language that only the lathe can speak. This carving process creates novel representations of a wide range of subjects, from those based on human anatomy to various animal forms. Derek works from a basic question, “What would this look like if rendered through the lens of a wood lathe?,” and even with the most rigorous naturalism, an honest abstraction takes place, and for each new subject that question gets answered. So from human heads to rhinos, mandrills to birds, each idea being captured in a way it has not been expressed before.